Dadar resident Sanaya Dalal has filed a
court petition in the Supreme Court against the discrimination her child faces
A third case of a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi, fighting for her own or her children’s rights, has been filed, this time directly in the Supreme Court. Sanaya Dalal, a resident of Mancherji Joshi Dadar Parsi Colony and her seven-year-old son, Rian Kishnani, have named nine respondents, including the Union of India, Parsee Central Association Co-operative Housing Society Ltd (PCA), the Dadar Parsee Colony Gymkhana (DPCG) and Facebook. Dalal is married to Rishi Kishnani, the son of a Hindu father (Om Kishnani) and Parsi mother (Khushnuma Patel).
Rian had applied for a Games Membership to the DPCG but his application has been kept pending because his father is a non-Parsi. The PCA has been named as the body objects to flats being transferred to Parsi women married to non-Parsis and has filed cases for eviction against them. Facebook is added to the list of respondents as posts offensive to interfaith married Parsi women have not been deleted.
Among the grounds cited for filing the writ petition are: "Discrimination between individuals on the basis of criteria which includes their race, caste, creed or ethnicity (which) cannot be justified under any circumstances, it being contrary to basic human rights and also Part III of the Constitution, in particular Article 15 of the Constitution of India 1950.”
Unlike the sexist, Parsi-only Ripon Club which permits Parsi women to be only associate members, DPCG permits women to be full-fledged members. Dalal is a "full member.”
Dadar Parsee Colony Gymkhana
The petition notes: "Children of members are entitled to apply for and obtain a Games Membership once they attain the age of five. The application of the Petitioner No 1 (Rian) for Games Membership along with a cheque for the necessary fees has been pending since January 2019. Thereafter, several letters have been sent enclosing new cheques for those which had expired due to non-encashment…
"It is stated that (Rian) is being denied membership which is restricted to ‘all Parsis professing Zoroastrian religion’ owing solely to his parentage and is no longer allowed on the premises. That in fact (Rian) has had to stop participating in the sports activities for children since he is now turned away at the gate…
"There cannot be a more offensive gender bias and a direct violation of the petitioner’s fundamental rights to life, liberty, equality and the right to practice one’s faith and choose one’s life partner…
"The Gymkhana is located on land, the occupation of which is not subject to any covenant limiting membership and use for only Parsi Zoroastrians, as per the terms of the said lease. It is noteworthy that the lease deed states that the lease has been granted for the purpose of ‘improvement of the city of Bombay.’
"That the important question of law to be considered is whether a public trust having been granted public land for the ‘improvement of the city of Bombay’ can restrict its membership based on grounds of race, lineage and parentage, leave alone religion.”
The charge against the PCA is that it objects to even ownership flats located in the Colony being sold to or transferred to Parsi women married to non-Parsis. They objected as she "being an only child whose spouse was a non-Parsi stood to inherit the property.
"It is reemphasized that the said apartment is not in any charitable colony or on trust property but an ownership flat duly purchased by the mother of petitioner No 2 (Dalal). The late father of (Dalal) was disabled, having been rendered blind since suffering a traumatic injury in 1998, and both her parents were senior citizens. The said objection by the housing society was illegal and unconstitutional and amounted to harassment of the aged parents of (Dalal), despite paying for a home at its proper commercial value…
"The covenant for the land underlying the said ownership flat requires that a non Parsi cannot inhabit an apartment designated to be only for Parsi families. The petitioners state that such covenant is itself unconstitutional.”
Other Parsi women from the Colony married to non-Parsis are similarly "pressurized and intimidated by the PCA which has in the past gone about harassing the occupants and the relevant housing societies, inter alia, by slapping legal cases against them with missionary zeal,” Dalal alleged. In her case the flat was transferred to the mother and Dalal’s name was subsequently accepted in the nomination form.
Facebook has been named as a respondent because it "allows ‘orthodox’ Parsis to form groups which indulge in hate speech(es) against intermarried Parsis, their children and also non-Parsis and (has) failed to check such hate speeches which (it) purportedly aims to do.”
Supreme Court Justices Abdul Nazeer and A. S. Bopanna sought the response of the Centre and the PCA "after it heard that such discrimination was a violation of Articles 14 (right to equality) and 21 (life and personal liberty) of the Constitution and that Parsi men who marry outside the community are not subjected to such harassment,” noted The Telegraph daily of August 28, 2021. Court papers have been served on the DPCG.